John:
To sprout beans I use a (brown) wide mouth, glass canning jar, with a piece of
screen cut to the size of the opening. Secure the screen with a rubber band or
screw top closure ring. After I wash and sort thru the beans I soak them for a
few hours.
I lay the jar on it's side at 90 degrees (some people suggest 45 degrees.)
I think your "opportunity" (there are no such things as problems) is rinse and
drain your spouts every 8 - 12 hours while they are geminating in cool water.
When you rinse them try not to mix them up they do better, if they are
undisturbed they will produce bigger roots.
In addition, here are a few websites that I thought you might find helpful.
http://www.sproutpeople.com/mung.html - Sprouting Mung Beans - The Sprout
People
http://www.chetday.com/sprouts.html - A Brief Overview and How to Sprout
http://www.xmg.com/sprouts.htm (Lots of sprout links) - XMG Resources
Good Luck & Cheers!
Risa-
>Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 19:52:02 -0000
>From: "John Lee" <jandj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Bean sprouts
>
> From time to time I grow my own bean sprouts from mung beans. I spread the
>dry mung beans on absorbent paper in a seed growing tray with a clear
>plastic hood and the beans are kept nicely damped every day and the inside
>of the 'greenhouse' hood is always nicely moist. The tray with hood is
>placed in a warm airing cupboard inside a large box and is kept in complete
>darkness. The sprouts take about three days to grow.
>
>But I have two problems.
>
>Firstly, the resultant bean sprouts grow to a good length but they are very
>thin and spindly, nothing like the thick bean sprouts you can buy in the
>supermarket. I'm not letting them grow for too long as even the shorter ones
>are skinny. I have used mung beans from different sources but the results
>are always the same. I would love to know how to produce nice fat sprouts.
>
>Secondly, when they have finished growing, the original (now split) somewhat
>soggy mung bean clings to the top of each bean sprout. Giving a bunch of
>sprouts a good shake gets rid of some of them, but they are very tenacious
>and it is impossible to get rid of them all.
>
>Many thanks to anybody out there who has suggestions to overcome the above
>problems.
>
>========================
>JOHN LEE U.K.
>e-mail address:
>jandj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>========================